Language In Singapore Research Articles

Understanding “Love” in the English Lyrics of the Original Songs by the Multilingual New Creation Church Singapore

Understanding “Love” in the English Lyrics of the Original Songs by the Multilingual New Creation Church Singapore

National Identity and the Choice of Official Languages: A Case Study of Bilingual Education in Singapore

Official languages reflect a country's people and cultures, and the process by which they are formulated provides insight into the country's historical development. In multi-ethnic countries, the diversity of languages represents rich cultural deposits, and each language has become a symbol of its people. However, such diversity can make the formulation of official languages challenging. Singapore serves as a compelling example of this challenge. In this research, I will examine the advantages and disadvantages of adopting English and Mandarin as official languages in Singapore, a multi-ethnic country with a complex linguistic landscape. I will also explore the negative outcomes that can arise from overemphasizing Mandarin in bilingual education. This research will demonstrate that mandatory implementation of a language cannot necessarily improve citizens' national identity, and may even exacerbate centrifugal forces.

Developing and Applying a Chinese Character Learning Game App to Enhance Primary School Students’ Abilities in Identifying and Using Characters

The Chinese language is the mother tongue that most students in Singapore need to master. However, for many local students, due to the use of English as the main language in Singapore’s families and the living environment, the time and frequency of using Chinese and the exposure to Chinese characters are relatively insufficient, which leads to a high forgetting rate, confusion of the characters and the improper use of Chinese characters. This study attempts to develop an app of a Chinese character learning game for Singapore primary school students, aiming to stimulate students’ interest in learning Chinese, increase their frequency of contact and use of Chinese characters, and ultimately strengthen their ability to remember, understand and use Chinese characters. By collecting the data from students’ questionnaire surveys, teachers’ questionnaire surveys, students’ literacy tests, and classroom observations, the research team found that the designed app can enhance the interest of lower grade primary school students in learning Chinese and strengthen their ability to memorize and use Chinese characters.

The Introduction and Significance of Official Languages in Singapore

The selection of official languages are always the most terrible event in a country with multi-lingual culture, However, the strategies for the language planning has achieved a great success in Singapore, bringing about benefits for the country and setting a great model for other countries. This article will introduce four major official languages of English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil, and discuss their significance for the development of this country.

Singapore Teochew as a heritage language

AbstractSituated in Southeast Asia, Singapore’s sociolinguistic situation has undergone several changes due to active language planning policies, with English and Mandarin becoming the two socio-politically majority languages in Singapore society. Over time, this has led to the restricted usage of various non-Mandarin dialects, including Teochew, both in public settings and within the home. This paper examines how Teochew, a heritage language in Singapore, has been affected in its vocabulary usage in apparent time. The data was collected from 41 Teochew male and female speakers aged 12–86 years. This paper contributes theoretically by showing the properties of a heritage language, Singapore Teochew, in an environment with multiple shifts of several major languages in Southeast Asia, instead of the more common situation of one major language shift.

싱가포르 대학생의 잠재적 한국어 학습 동기 = Potential Learning Motivation for Korean Language in Singapore

싱가포르 대학생의 잠재적 한국어 학습 동기 = Potential Learning Motivation for Korean Language in Singapore

Hokkien as a Heritage Language of Citizenry in Singapore

In examining Hokkien as a heritage language in Singapore, this discussion hopes to contribute to an enriching of the perception of citizenship in an ever-evolving national narrative towards one people (Mathew, 2017). The Singapore Census of Population statistics indicate that 11% of ethnic local Chinese households speak Hokkien. Singaporean television serials and movies that use Hokkien as the medium of narration achieve encouraging viewership and box office ratings, hinting that Hokkien is understood, or appreciated by a significant number of the local population as a language of prominence. Therefore, since Hokkien holds a key to common Chinese Singaporean cultural memories, this paper contemplates if learning Hokkien could cultivate a collective resilience when balancing professional, and personal challenges. To this end, 冰冰Show, a contemporary Taiwanese variety program available on YouTube, is used to evaluate the potential power of this language in nurturing citizenship.

Chinese Language Standards of Primary and Secondary Texts

Chinese is taught as a second language in Singapore, taking up 15–20% of curriculum time in primary and secondary schools and without the support of the other subjects in the curriculum. The notion of a two-year difference with Chinese as a first language is common but with no official documentation. This study aims to verify the standard gap between Chinese as a first language in China and as a second language in Singapore, using samples of texts of the two countries. It was found that Primary 1 texts of China are equivalent to Primary 3 in Singapore in terms of readability, based on a newly developed readability formula. The gap gets gradually wider at the primary level but fast widening and erratic at the secondary level. Probably causes and implications are discussed.

Popular music censorship under Chinese societies: selected Canto-pop case studies in China, Hong Kong and Singapore

PurposeWhile Hong Kong has exercised laissez-faire policy with regard to popular cultural industries, such broadcasting freedom may not fully accepted in countries where state control of the media is tight. This paper aims to have a review and brief discussion on music development and the phenomenon of popular music censorship under Chinese societies including China, Hong Kong and Singapore.Design/methodology/approachAfter a brief discussion on the popular music scene in Hong Kong, China and Singapore, this paper reviews on the possible reasons for popular music censorship issue in the Chinese societies.FindingsIt is found that Canto-pop can be freely broadcast in Hong Kong; however, such freedom is not accepted in China and Singapore due to censorship. While China is sensitive to pro-democratic content in popular music, Singapore's language policies hinder the development of Canto-pop since the 70s.Originality/valueAfter reviewing the reasons for music censorship, in particular Cantonese popular music in the Chinese societies, the paper gives a prediction on the future development of Canto-pop.

Inclusion, exclusion, and racial identity in Singapore's language education system

The multiethnic population of Singapore speaks a wide variety of languages, only four of which hold official status. We consider sociolinguistic issues that arise in connection with Singapore's Mother Tongue (MT) education policy, in which children are assigned a course of language study based on their racial heritage. A survey of Singaporeans from various backgrounds indicates that those of mixed and/or minority heritage do not identify strongly with their assigned MT. Respondents of Chinese heritage differ considerably in their attitudes by ethnolinguistic background; overall, they show more ambivalence towards their assigned MT than respondents of Malay and Indian heritage. Our findings reflect the legacies of Singapore's government language campaigns, as well as a growing enthusiasm among Singaporeans for languages that index distinctive regional ethnic identities.

Linguistic landscaping in Singapore: multilingualism or the dominance of English and its dual identity in the local linguistic ecology?

ABSTRACTAlthough Singapore, a linguistically and ethnically diverse city–state, uses four official languages, namely Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English, which are supposed to enjoy equal status, there appears to be a pecking order to these languages. English seems to be the dominant language when taking into consideration the bilingual education policy, numerous campaigns promoting its use in terms of spoken language, and language use by the media. Another mechanism that also contributes to the predominance of English over the other three official languages is linguistic landscape, i.e. language use in public space. Adopting the ecology of language as its conceptual framework and linguistic landscape as its methodological tool, this article, by analyzing public signs in and around 30 MRT (Mass Rapid Transport) stations of the Circle Line (CCL), discloses not only English imperialism but also the complexity of this language in Singapore with its dual identity as a global language as well as a local one. Consequentially, it is postulated that Singapore is monolingual- rather than bilingual- or multilingual-oriented.

Noun phrase complexity in Nigerian English

Structural simplicity/complexity is an important variable with which New Englishes and native varieties are identified and conceptualised, but predicting such variation in complexity has received little attention in the literature. New Englishes, especially the outer circle varieties such as Nigerian or Indian English, differ in form and function from the inner circle varieties, such as British or American English, but the extent of such variation varies greatly and merits further investigation. According to Gorlach (1998), we should expect New Englishes to demonstrate simplification at the levels of morphology, lexis, and syntax. This has indeed been shown to be the case in some varieties, but it has also been shown that this variation differs according to different linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Most recently, Schilk and Schaub (2016) have shown how noun phrase (NP) structure can reveal the underlying structural simpification predicted in the New Englishes varieties. Brunner (2014) examined NP complexity across three New Englishes (British, Singaporean, and Kenyan English), explicating how grammars of the indigeneous languages in Singapore and Kenya influence NP simplicity/complexity.

Standardising the Chinese language in Singapore: issues of policy and practice

ABSTRACTThe selection of standards and norms constitutes the first and most important step for language standardisation. In this paper, we examine the standard establishment for Huayu (or Singapore Mandarin), a new Chinese variety that has emerged in Singapore as a result of centralised planning and inter-linguistic contact. Huayu is the officially designated mother tongue of the Chinese community and a second language in school education in Singapore. The overall linguistic features of Huayu largely conform to the norms practiced in mainland China, though this localised variety has developed a number of distinctive phonological, lexical and grammatical features. Singapore’s government takes a Tacit Compliance Approach to the Mandarin norms, that is, exonormative standards are followed in an implicit manner. This pragmatic approach has engendered some confusion and dilemmas for Chinese language (CL) education in Singapore. Given the fact that Huayu is approaching a stage of nativisation, we propose the adoption of an explicit endonormative standard to cater to the pressing needs in CL teaching, learning and assessment.

Use of ICT in Singapore’s Primary Chinese Lessons

This paper examines how information and communication technology (ICT) is utilized for the purpose of teaching Chinese language in Singapore’s primary school. From the analysis of 17 Chinese lessons, conclusions regarding the role of ICT in Singapore’s Chinese language teaching emerge, showing how various types of ICT tools and materials are manipulated for different purposes of teaching, how ICT is combined with pedagogies widely used in Chinese language teaching, how ICT is incorporated into classroom interaction, and how ICT works together with textbook in Chinese classroom. This paper also attempts to explain the findings of data analysis in terms of teachers’ attitude to ICT use, the problems of policy initiatives and the limitation of technology itself.

The tongue in between: Some thoughts on the teaching of Chinese as a second language in Singapore

AbstractIn Singapore’s unique and complex linguistic environment, it is common to have Chinese-language learners from many different backgrounds in the same school classroom, which is why Singapore is nicknamed as a “language laboratory.” In this paper, I hope to examine our linguistic environment and response strategies from different angles, including theories of second-language acquisition and Singapore’s teaching methods and distinguishing features. This paper argues that Singapore’s approach to teaching Chinese as a second language have to be highly diverse and specialized, in cohesion with Singapore’s constantly evolving sociolinguistic landscape and Chinese-language teaching environment.

Language politics and global city

The state in Singapore has long insisted that Singaporeans be bilingual in English and an officially assigned ethnic mother tongue. English is to serve as the inter-ethnic lingua franca and facilitate economic competitiveness. The official mother tongue (Mandarin for the Chinese, Malay for the Malays, and Tamil for the Indians) is to serve as a cultural anchor for all the members of its associated ethnic group. Singapore's recent desire to establish itself as a global city, however, means that the social and linguistic order that the state has constructed on the basis of historically inherited ethnolinguistic affiliations and boundaries has to come to terms with a society that is opening up economically, culturally, and politically. The relationship between language and (ethnic) identity needs to be broadened so as to accommodate more diverse ethnolinguistic experiences. In this paper, I suggest that modernist assumptions informing Singapore's language policy need to be re-evaluated as the country attempts to re-invent itself as a global city, focusing on the implications for language education. I argue that citizenship as a form of reflexive defensive engagement is particularly useful if we are to comprehensively situate the complex state–society negotiations that characterize the politics of language in Singapore.

Planning for Development or Decline? Education Policy for Chinese Language in Singapore

This article examines how political discourse, language ideologies, recent Chinese curriculum reforms, and their representations in the media are inextricably related. Using the Speak Mandarin Campaign as background for the inquiry, I focus on textual features of the various media sources, TV advertisements, campaign slogans, official speeches, and newspaper excerpts to illuminate the status and changing role of the Chinese language in Singapore's sociocultural, economic, and political development. Using critical discourse analysis as an analytical framework, I examine the contradictory ideologies that underpin the government's language policies and planning activities. On the one hand, the government emphasizes the cultural and economic values of the Chinese language; on the other hand, government schools teach Chinese as a subject. In particular, the recent reforms in Chinese language curriculum have arguably further diluted the content of teaching. In addition I point out how conflicting ideologies behind language policies can lead to cultural confusion and educational uncertainty. These mixed messages make it difficult for schools to offer a consistent language education curriculum that will help students appreciate the value, be it economic, cultural or educational, of the Chinese language.

“Foreign workers” in Singapore: conflicting discourses, language politics and the negotiation of immigrant identities

Singapore's status as one of the most globalized nations in the world rests primarily on its reliance on cheap immigrant labor. However, with foreign workers now comprising 36 percent of Singapore's population, resentment is fast building up among local Singaoreans, as evidenced in the public discourses on migrants which contruct largely negative identities for them. In the context of Singapore's language policy, where English is deemed necessary not only as an interethnic lingua franca but for global economic competitiveness, anti-immigrant discourse frequently comes to be couched in terms of language politics and language ideologies that strongly smack of monolingual/monolithic attitudes in relation to English. Thus, paradoxically, despite a large proportion of Singapore's current population being the descendants of early immigrants, the “foreign workers” hired today for jobs Singaporeans themselves are unwilling to take up, are castigated for their English language skills, among other things. Because numerous studies dealing with the implications for language shift and maintenance in relation to Singapore's language planning initiatives already exist, our article refocuses issues to allow grassroots subjectivity to come in by examining how immigrant identities in Singapore are negotiated through the personal narratives of the everyday experience of these foreign workers, framed within the contraints of language politics and language ideological understandings prevalent in Singapore.

PRM22 Testing the Equivalence of the Label Wording for EQ-5D-5L Response Options Across Different Languages in Singapore

PRM22 Testing the Equivalence of the Label Wording for EQ-5D-5L Response Options Across Different Languages in Singapore

Saving Chinese-language education in Singapore

Three-quarters of Singapore's population consists of ethnic Chinese, and yet, learning Chinese (Mandarin) has been a headache for many Singapore students. Recently, many scholars have argued that the rhetoric of language planning for Mandarin Chinese should be shifted from emphasizing its cultural value to stressing its economic value since China's economy is on the rise. Others have proposed that there be a wider use of Mandarin in domains outside the classroom. Given that Singapore's language planning uses a top-down model, these are issues that can only be left to the discretion of the authorities. This article traces the policies that have led to a decline in Chinese-language proficiency in Singapore. It then suggests how some changes can be made to help students have a chance to learn Mandarin in a progressive and effective way, thus saving Chinese-language proficiency in Singapore.